221
Institutions have accepted or given pre-approval for credit transfer.

* The American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE Credit®) has evaluated and recommended college credit for 20 of Sophia’s online courses. More than 2,000 colleges and universities consider ACE CREDIT recommendations in determining the applicability to their course and degree programs.

Tutorial

This lesson is going to cover different kinds of
assessments by looking at:

Questionnaire

Projective Tests

1. Questionnaires

Assessments are used to measure various aspects and
traits of a person’s personality. Each approach uses different types of
assessments. One type is a questionnaire. These are important
because it underlies the importance of objective tests.

An objective assessment is when the same questions and
measures are used for each person so they're not varying and can be studied
them more in depth. It would also mean that a questionnaire or an objective
form of assessment should give the same score when different people are scoring
it.

Objective Test

Test with standardized, consistent scoring and administration.

Personality Questionnaire

Type of objective test; a written test with questions that ask about aspects of a person’s thinking, feeling, or behavior.

A personality questionnaire is a written form of test,
where a person is given a list of questions that reveal different aspects of a
person's personality depending on the answers they give. They often ask in
personality questionnaires about likely behaviors, a person's feelings, and
their responses in different kinds of scenarios.

An advantage of the questionnaire is they can be given to
a large number of people. A large amount of data can be collected to support
whatever theories are being tested.

The weaknesses are that they can be inflexible.
They can't be changed depending on what type of person you're studying. They
can also be biased toward particular groups. The way that they are written can
affect what kinds of scores youLoading...
get from different kinds of people. Questionnaires can also vary widely in terms of
reliability and validity. means that the results are consistent.

{If someone were to take the same questionnaire twice
in a short period of time, they should be getting basically the same score.
Otherwise the test isn't reliable.

Reliability

Consistency of responses to assessment across time.

means that the test measures what it's supposed
to measure, and it isn't being affected by any kind of outside variables. Its
results should be similar to other tests that are reliable about the same kinds
of subjects.

If you developed a questionnaire and were to test
the validity of it, you would look at other things that are measuring the similar
thing and have been shown to be effective over time. If the results are close to
the same you have a valid questionnaire.

Validity

Test measures what the researcher is attempting to measure.

2. Projective Tests

are tests that are a little bit different.
They tend to use ambiguous words, or images especially, to attempt to uncover
unconscious thoughts or desires. Projective tests are focused on psychodynamic
theories of the unconscious.

The Rorschach inkblot tests where people's responses to
this picture of an inkblot are recorded and interpreted by an observer.

Projective Test

Tests that present ambiguous stimuli; responses are analyzed for meaning.

The strengths are that projective tests are very
difficult to fake, because there aren't right or wrong answers. Oftentimes the
person doesn't realize what they're being tested on, because they're looking at
their unconscious, rather than their conscious mind. They can also provide
in-depth information about the subject's mental processes that are otherwise
very difficult to understand.

Weaknesses for projective tests is that they tend to be
very low in validity, since it's hard to tell at times what they are measuring.
They're also subject to some interpretation by the psychologist who's giving
it, because the psychologist is recording the responses.

There are specific procedures when scoring, so it's not
completely up to the psychologist to determine the interpretation will be.

Different
approaches of psychology use different kinds of assessments to measure aspects
of personality. The questionnaire is a form of written test that can reveal
personality based on the answers a test taker gives. These can be given to a
large number of people, and are helpful for collecting large amounts of data.
However, they can be inflexible and can vary is reliability and validity. Projective tests are used for testing the unconscious. These tests can be
difficult to fake and give insight into mental process that are otherwise hard
to understand. These tests have low validity.

Source: This work is adapted from Sophia Author Erick Taggart

TERMS TO KNOW

Reliability

Consistency of responses to assessment across time.

Validity

Test measures what the researcher is attempting to measure.

Objective Test

Test with standardized, consistent scoring and administration.

Projective Test

Tests that present ambiguous stimuli; responses are analyzed for meaning.

Personality Questionnaire

Type of objective test; a written test with questions that ask about aspects of a person’s thinking, feeling, or behavior.